Grammer: NIL disparities in football get attention, but UNM's non-revenue sports face bigger challenge

It took 24 seconds into NBC’s in-booth intro to Saturday night’s primetime, national network television broadcast of the UNM Lobos at No. 14 Michigan Wolverines game for the acronym that has changed the landscape of college athletics to make its season debut.

NIL. Name, image and likeness — the catch-all three-letter acronym that has become a four-letter word to many fans, especially at places like UNM, where even the New York Times recently penned a 2,000-word article using the Lobos to highlight the question of whether non-power conference schools can continue to survive in a world where their best players bolt for bigger payouts every year with paying players being allowed (and has been for several years now).

Saturday, NBC announcers Noah Eagle and Todd Blackledge made the first reference to Michigan’s starting freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood and his reported $12 million NIL deal just 24 seconds into their initial in-booth remarks about the game.

The Lobos, a team with about $1 million total in revenue-sharing money backing its roster, put up a fight but lost 34-17.

Such an outcome with a playing field so unbalanced — a $1 million roster vs one with tens of millions devoted to it — is probably expected by now, and even applauded when the underdog just puts up a fight like the Lobos did.

Meanwhile, back west, two other teams of UNM students wearing the same cherry and silver colors and with the same “New Mexico” and “Lobos” lettering on their chests went 5-0 in matches in the past five days. And while all those games combined fell short of that 110,000 football attendance figure by about 109,000 fans, the fight they’re putting up in this college athletics landscape at a school that simply can’t help them at all with revenue sharing right now should also be applauded.

Heather Dyche’s UNM Lobo women’s soccer team, which won at Big Ten Oregon on Thursday for the Albuquerque native’s 100th career coaching victory, improved to 3-0-2 — undefeated in five matches — with a 1-0 win on Sunday over Pac-12 member Oregon State.

Her team also was fighting two teams that have NIL on their rosters.

“Women’s soccer is not immune to it,” Dyche said of the NIL/rev-share challenges in recruiting to a school like UNM.

“And certain schools have quite a bit of NIL, even within our conference. You see it probably mostly in the portal when you’re talking with players and the first question is, what can you give me? And they’re not talking about scholarships.”

Jon Newman-Gonchar’s Lobo volleyball team, which jumped out to a 3-0 record with three home wins Friday and Saturday in the Lobo Invitational, also doesn’t have the benefit of keeping his top players around year after year by writing a check. Like Dyche, the goal is finding gems and hoping they stay at UNM for more than money, though neither are begrudging a college student who leaves for it.

“We want to be able to retain players. So we’re optimistic and hopeful that someday, that (revenue sharing or NIL) is coming our way,” Newman-Gonchar said. “I think for us, it’s about retaining the athletes, and it’s about attracting the athletes that want to be a part of something that is UNM volleyball. And we think we’ve got a great program. We think we do things the right way.”

Neither coach is raising a fuss about UNM’s current approach. They get it. For the Lobos — all the Lobos — to get to a higher level in college athletics, the longtime golden goose of men’s basketball can’t be ignored and the revenue-generating potential of Lobo football must first be sparked with financial backing.

“We have to create a program they want to be a part of, and we want to make sure that when players do come here, they’re not swayed to leave by NIL — it wouldn’t be meaningful in their life,” Dyche said. “... I think if you get that part right, then you can battle things (in recruiting) in a little bit of a different way.”

Like Dyche, Gonchar-Newman is emphatic that there are no hard feelings at all about the Lobo sports currently getting some NIL help, and said he’s appreciative that the current culture at UNM seems to be committed to getting all programs to shine.

”Seeing (UNM Lobo men’s basketball coach Eric) Olen and some of the other coaches (at a recent match), it’s — there’s a camaraderie. And I’ll be totally transparent, I think between (football coach Jason) Eck and Olen, you’ve got two guys that just want to see the entire athletic department elevate,” said Newman-Gonchar.

”They don’t just want to see their programs be good. We know they do. That’s why they came here. They want to go be the best in what they do, but the entire experience is being elevated by two guys, two leaders who are saying, ‘Hey, let’s elevate everybody around us. Let’s get everybody really good.”